Firefighter Thrillers

Firefighter with a Death Wish

In Kurt Kamm’s One Foot in the Black, a fire chief says, “Scratch a firefighter and you’ll find an adrenaline junkie.” And that’s merely the baseline for these characters. The protagonist of Consumed, firefighter Anne Ashburn, believes they’re all insane. That beyond the adrenalin rush, it’s a form of madness that compels them to take their “bodies and their minds into open flames for little money and lots of risk.” These novels explore the traumas that make daredevils wrestle with a death wish. The trauma can be from the work itself, like the death of a firefighter on the job. We see this in in Andrew Pyper’s poetic and tension-filled novel The Wildfire Season. The trauma can also be from the protagonist’s past, like a history of neglect or abuse. Often, these thrillers depict characters struggling with a combination of these emotional burdens, drawing us deeper into their worlds by connecting to our own hopes and fears. The Wildfire Season’s physically and mentally scarred protagonist, Miles McEwan, is a haunting example, and the demoralized but strong-willed Anne Ashburn of Consumed is an inspiring one.

These protagonists are mirrors of the damaged detectives we love in mystery novels. The men and women who, beaten down by the job or their past, bend and break the rules to catch the killer. Characters who follow the rules and stay on the sidelines are boring, and that’s why these thrillers bring us main characters on the edge of extreme. And the tormented hero isn’t the only parallel between firefighting thrillers and more ubiquitous suspense thrillers. There’s also the crucial element of the antagonist behind the murder and mayhem.

Men and women risking their lives in a battle against a monstrous blaze is gripping – it’s one of the great man versus nature conflicts – but it becomes even more compelling when the mindless fire was set by a mindful antagonist hellbent on destruction. That antagonist and their hidden, malicious goal creates a need for justice and ratchets up the danger to our heroes. The threat of arsonists adds that juicy human element, the mystery and murderous intent, that we love in all the best thrillers. A blaze started by a lightning strike can be just as destructive as one lit on purpose, but only the fire created by the arsonist has intrigue. What is the arsonist hoping to achieve? What unique reasons are motivating them? This not only leads to a mystery that needs solving, but to a person that must be stopped before they strike again – just like the murderer in a classic thriller.

Justice and Mystery

Someone is dead, and the killer must be found so justice can be done. It’s the basis of every mystery. An arsonist-started blaze that leads to deaths is no different, except that it amplifies the sheer magnitude of destruction. A fire can lay waste to homes or whole towns, it can reduce forests to ashes and displace wildlife, and it can send a choking haze over entire cities. And when it claims lives, the need for justice is even more powerful. Firefighting thrillers often ramp up the tension by layering arson investigation storylines on top of the daredevil exploits of heroic responders. And of course, the people setting such blazes rarely sit idly by while the investigation proceeds. In Hell’s Gate by Stephen Frey, the malignant forces behind a deadly wildfire stack murder on manslaughter to cover their tracks. In the recent book-to-movie Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta, a guilt-wracked smokejumper must evade a pair of assassins willing to burn down a forest to get their target. These cloak-and-dagger themes, which we love in mystery novels, turn up the heat in many of the arson investigation plots. If you like whodunits, for example, you can enjoy trying to suss out the arsonists in Hell’s Gate, The Wildfire Season, and Red Flag Warning by Kurt Kamm.

Not Just Shirtless Hunks

As it turns out, there are suspenseful, mystery-filled, and exciting books about firefighters that don’t show a shirtless hunk on the cover and focus on titillating prose inside (not that there’s anything wrong with a steamy read!). The firefighting thriller may be niche, but it grows timelier with every fiery summer. Even deeper than that, these stories offer explosive explorations of our relationship with fire, as well as intimate portraits of the souls who fight them. We’re fascinated by an elemental power that’s both controllable and uncontrollable, calamitous as well as cleansing. We can almost taste the ashes ourselves through the journeys of troubled firefighters and investigators. The inner turmoil of these characters, their trials and growth, brings nuance and power to our superficial understanding of sacrifice and danger. The firefighting thriller gives us a chance to look upon the face of blazing death and explore what it means to live.

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